Aphorisms from the Professor: Brillat-Savarin

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

A few weeks ago I defended my doctoral dissertation (please, hold your applause!), and to congratulate me on finally not being a student anymore, my parents bought me a macro lens for my camera. For the past two weeks I have mainly been experimenting with it in the garden because the zoom is amazing (we're talking pictures of ants on leaves), but this was the first time I tried it in my "food photo studio" and got to really appreciate what this lens can do. Although it is tempting to take pictures of things close-up - and it's a bit difficult to shake that habit given how far you have to stand from you subject to NOT have a super close-up - the real art afforded by this lens is getting fantastic depth of field.

My food photography life just changed.

Beef, beet, dill and horseradish burgers with a blend of Italian cheeses, tomato and wasabi mayonnaise served on a whole wheat baguette

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About Us

My boyfriend loves to cook and is very creative in the kitchen. Although the internet is often consulted, he doesn't use recipes. He does most (ok, just about all) of the "heavy lifting" documented here. He also happens to be an amazing artist - which may contribute to his excellent food plating and presentation - so check out his art store on Etsy (and see some samples at the bottom of the page).

I perform important tasks (mainly peeling and chopping onions) and provide ideas gleaned from hours of reading food blogs, recipes and menus online, as well as gentle suggestions (i.e. "Isn't the [ingredient] going to go bad soon? Maybe we should use [ingredient] tonight..."). I am also Head Photographer and Blogmaster.

About Our Blog

In an article in the New York TimesMichael Pollan said that we spend more time watching "sport" cooking shows than we do actually cooking. And he said this like it is a bad thing. We hope that this blog proves that these shows, while not explicitly instructive, can be a wonderful inspiration.

Of course no one has the time or resources to cook like an Iron Chef all the time. Sometimes we decide to be adventurous and try more elaborate dishes, but generally we want to show that it isn't difficult to put together interesting, creative, and healthy meals any night of the week. We don't make a weekly plan, we don't decide what to make and then go get ingredients. We buy random fun and interesting things that catch our eye at the grocery store, and then figure out how we can use them.

So don't look here for recipes (for the most part the description of what we ate is all there is to it - "mashed turnip with horseradish" is mashed turnip with horseradish!), look here for everyday ideas and inspiration.